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IX.

But, oh! how altered was its sprightlier tone, When CHEERFULNESS, a nymph of healthiest hue, Her bow across her shoulder flung,

Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,

Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,
The hunter's call, to Faun' and Dryad2 known;
The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen,
Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen
Peeping from forth their alleys green;

Brown EXERCISE rejoiced to hear,

And SPORT leaped up, and seized his beechen spear

X.

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:

He, with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand addressed;
But soon he saw the brisk, awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.
They would have thought, who heard the strain
They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids,
Amidst the festal sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing:

While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
LOVE framed with MIRTH, a gay fantastic round,
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound:
And he, amidst his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

XI.

O MUSIC! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of PLEASURE, WISDOM's aid,
Why, goddess! why to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
As in that loved Athenian bower,
You learned an all-commanding power;

Thy mimic soul, O Nymph endeared,
Can well recall what then it heard.
Where is thy native simple heart.
Devote to virtue, fancy, art?

XII.

Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders in that godlike age
Fill thy recording sister's page;
'Tis said, and I believe the tale,
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age;
E'en all, at once, together found,
Cecilia's* mingled world of sound.
Oh! bid our vain endeavors cease,
Revive the just designs of Greece;
Return in all thy simple state;
Confirm the tales her sons relate.

EXERCISE CXLII.

EDMUND BURKE, the celebrated British orator and statesman, was born in Dublin, January 1st, 1730, and died in the year 1797. He was a profound thinker, a fine scholar, an accomplished debater, and a truly elegant writer.

WILLIAM PITT, first Earl of Chatham, one of England's noblest orators and statesmen, was born, at Westminster, November 15th, 1708, and died May 11th, 1778. "History," says Macaulay, "while, for the warning of vehement, high and daring natures, she notes his many errors, will yet deliberately pronounce, that, among the eminent men whose bones lie near his, scarce one has left a more stainless, and none a more splendid name."

BURKE AND CHATHAM.

WILLIAM HAZLITT.†

1. The only public man that, in my opinion, can be put in any competition with Burke, is Lord Chatham: and he moved

* For a Note on Cecilia, see Exercise CXLIX.
† For a Note on Hazlitt, see Exercise XXIX

in a sphere so very remote, that it is almost im possible to compare them. But, though it would, perhaps, be difficult to determine which of them excelled most in his particular way, there is nothing in the world more easy than to point out in what this peculiar excellence consisted. They were in every respect the reverse of each other. Chatham's eloquence was popular : his wisdom was altogether plain and practical.

2. Burke's eloquence was that of the poet; of the man of high and unbounded fancy: his wisdom was profound and contemplative. Chatham's eloquence was calculated to make men act; Burke's calculated to make them think. Chatham could have roused the fury of a multitude, and wielded their physical energy as he pleased: Burke's eloquence carried conviction into the mind of the retired and lonely student, opened the recesses of the human breast, and lighted up the face of nature around him. Chatham supplied his hearers with motives to immediate action Burke furnished them with reasons for action, which might have little effect upon them at the time, but for which they would be the wiser and better all their lives after.

3. In research, in originality, in variety of knowledge, in richness of invention, in depth and comprehension of mind, Burke had as much the advantage of Lord Chatham as he was excelled by him in plain common sense, in strong feeling, in steadiness of purpose, in vehemence, in warmth, in enthusiasm, and energy of mind.

4. Burke was the man of genius, of fine sense, and subtle reasoning; Chatham was a man of clear understanding, of strong sense, and violent passions. Burke's mind was satisfied with speculation; Chatham's was essentially active: it could not rest without an object. The power which governed Burke's mind was his Imagination; that which gave its impetus to Chatham's was Will. The one was almost the creature of pure intellect, the other of physical temperament.

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EXERCISE CXLIII.

HYDER ALI, the celebrated Sultan of Mysore, was born in the year 1718 and died in 1782. The East India Company, becoming jealous of his power, formed alliances against him; but he waged war so vigorously and so fuecessfully, that they found it necessary to enter into treaty with him to aid him in his defensive wars. When, however, he called upon them to fulfil} their engagements, which he did several times to no purpose, he projected the terrible invasion which forms the subject of the following brilliant passage

MOHAMMED ALI, Nabob of the Carnatic, an ancient province of British India, on the eastern coast of Hindoostan, is more frequently called the Nabob (viceroy) of Arcot, from the town where he had his court. He held his government, through the force of British policy in India, to the prejudice of the claims of an elder brother. Falling under the influence of some British residents, who encouraged certain ambitious schemes of his, and who, taking advantage of his weak character, had quietly contrived to overload him with pecuniary obligations, when he found himself unable to defend his dominions, he was obliged to assign his revenues to the East India Company, in order to defray the expenses of a war undertaken by them in his (which, also, involved their) defense. But it soon became evident that these very revenues had already been assigned to the parties before mentioned, who had so secretly brought the Nabob under an insupportable load of debt. It being, therefore, important for the company to inquire into the justice of the claims of these cunning creditors, the matter finally got before the British parliament, where, in the course of debate, Mr. Burke delivered (February 28th, 1785) the splendid speech, of which the present Exercise forms a part.

THE INVASION OF THE CARNATIC.

BURKE.

1. When, at length, Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestined criminals a memorable example to mankind.

2. He resolved in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting mon ment of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those against whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together, was no protection. He became, at length, so confident of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful reso lution.

3. Having terminated his disputes with every enemy and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction; and, compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation into one black cloud, he hung for awhile on the declivities of the mountains.

4. While the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war, before known or heard of, were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple

5. The miserable inhabitants, flying from their flaming villages in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness of function; fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and, amid the goading spears of drivers and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity, in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest, fled to the walled cities; but, escaping from the fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine.

6. For eighteen months, without intermission, this destruction raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore; and so completely did these masters in their art, Hyder Ali, and his more ferocious son,* absolve themselves of their impious vow, that when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic, for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march, they did not see one man-not one woman-not one child-not one four-footed beast of any description whatever! One dead, uniform silence reigned over the whole region.

* Tippoo Saib, the celebrated son of Hyder Ali, here referred to, was born in 1751, and succeeded his father in 1782.

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